In researching his personal genealogy, Jack Crowder, a retired teacher and administrator at St. Andrew Catholic School and Nolan Catholic High School, discovered about 50 relatives who fought in the Revolutionary War. He did not expect to find something more: material for his book Chaplains of the Revolutionary War.

One wintry evening in 1940 the doorbell rang at the home of Magda and Pastor Andre Trocme in the not-yet-famous town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France. Opening the door, Magda saw a German Jewish woman shivering in the cold.